Famous Last Words
by Zoicytes-Shadow
Summary: What do the Death Eaters in hiding do while they're waiting?Check up on rumors about Harry of course. Annoying each other is a given. Entrances by non DEs as well.


What do the people in hiding from the rest of the wizarding world do while waiting?

Featuring the ones in hiding, and the characters that are pretty much forgotten.

All Harry Potter Characters belong to JK Rowling, no matter how much I insist Bella is in my bedroom.

The rumors herein are legitimate rumors (?) found on websites by donors to those sites. If anyone can remember who first thought of them, just tell me and I'll give due credit for their amazingness.

--

Bellatrix Lestrange swept up to an overturned table, staring at a piece of parchment in her hands.

"Well, let's have a role call." She paused for a moment, clearly waiting for someone to conscientuously lighten the room.

It never happened. She drew out her own wand, hissing a 'lumos' at it. The room brightened enough for everyone in it to see each other.

Bella's eyes focused on the paper.

"Cissy?"

Narcissa sighed, raising her hand.

"Sinistra...?"

The black clad astronomy teacher waved.

Bellatrix decided to ignore her prescence in their Death Eater union. The woman had good fashion sense, after all.

"Snape?"  
"I'm right here."  
"...Sybil Trelawney?"

"I can sense the confusion in your soul."

Bellatrix twitched. "It goes that deep?"  
"I am here, as the planets dictated I must."

Sinistra elbowed the divination teacher. "The planets belong to me."

"Oh joy, and the Dark Lord only wants this world. Maybe you can give it to him then."

Sinistra shot a glare at Snape.

"The Inner Eye has demanded my prescence."

"Okay!" Bellatrix waved her hand. If they had to, they could just kill the misty eyed seeress.

The Lady Lestrange glanced at the paper again. "Draco?"

No reply.

"Alright, he's dead."

"What?.!" Narcissa shrieked, causing everyone else to shush at her.

"I was kidding. Maybe." Bellatrix rolled her eyes and turned back to the paper.

"...Luna Lovegood?"

"Present." The smiling girl waved at Bellatrix cheerily.

"Did the planets or some inner eye tell you to be here too?"

"No, of course not. I'm looking for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks."

Bellatrix twitched. "Of course."

"And lastly, ...Rita Skeeter, what the hell? Over half of you aren't even Death Eaters."

"No, but we were ignored, so we came here."

"I thought your Inner Eye told you." Sinistra sneered at Trelawney.

"My inner eye told me to come here once I was bored." Trelawney clarified haughtily.

"Are you here to sign up as Death Eaters?"

"No."  
"Then what are you here for?" Bellatrix was losing her patience, clutching her wand tighter.

A few shared looks of confusion passed between the group.

"Girl talk?"

Snape positively scowled.

"I have an idea that might be accomodating to us all." Rita Skeeter smiled.

"Well Skeeter?" Snape demanded, hoping it was better than the torture of the earlier suggestion.

"We could gather rumours and information on Harry Potter and his friends."

"And us." Luna put in brightly.

Bellatrix felt interest. She had always liked malicious gossip, and what better was there to do when waiting?

"Wonderful! Well, who will go out to gather information?"

She ignored the hands that predictably shot into the air, and adressed the other members instead.

"Cissy?"  
"I am way too important in the wizarding community to go rumour hunting on the Potter boy."  
"Sevvie?"  
"Firstly, do not call me that. Secondly, I'm in hiding for murdering the headmaster."

Bella's gaze passed over Trelawney, Luna and Rita. She grimaced, then spotted Professor Sinistra.

"Sinistra! You blend in with the walls."  
"I know. I was trying."

"It's up to you. Come back with some good information for us. And come alone, or we'll be forced to kill you."

Sinistra rolled her eyes as she got up and left the Shrieking Shack.

----

"Knight to B-20."

The Black Knight went across the board, then back to the other side, frantically looking for the nonexistant number twenty.

"Bellatrix. You have no idea how to play chess, do you?" Snape droned, watching her knight bump into one of her pawns, rolling it off of the board entirely.

"Don't accuse me of ignorance, peon!"

"I'm accusing you of stupidity."  
Bellatrix fumed. She was losing to herself, and had just been insulted. She picked up a pawn and threw it angrily at Snape's eye. He shouted, clutching at his face, and knocked the chess board away as he stumbled around the room.

"There, see?"  
"I do bloody well not see anything!"  
"I do know how to play chess."

Luna Lovegood walked dreamily around the small shack, pinning things to the wall in hopes of making decor.

Trelawney trailed her, muttering helpful comments. "I sense that the stick must be moved to the left to help purify your soul."  
"That piece of metal is in perfect shape to awaken the inner knowledge in anyone."

Narcissa had found a chair, mended it and dusted it, and now sat in it, looking worried and waiting for Draco to arrive.

Rita Skeeter sat in a corner, eyeing everyone alternately with a menacing look of glee.

Snape ran past the door to the shack. As he fell over, a figure descended towards them. Bellatrix pulled out her wand, Rita pulled out her quill, Narcissa pulled out a piece of her hair, and Trelawney and Luna just stood there utterly unhelpful.

"Stupefy!" Bella shouted. The curse connected with the person, who fell audibly.

For a moment no one moved. Bella shook her head, used to doing everything anyway, and drug the person into the room.

It was Draco.

Bella let him go, stalking off to a seat as Narcissa enveloped her son in a hug.

"Oh Draco, where have you been? I've been so worried about you! You could have gotten into so much trouble! Have you been hurt darling? Bella, why isn't he responding? What happened to him?.!"  
"I stupefied him." Bella answered, watching Narissa shake her son with disinterest.

"Oh my poor baby!"

"He could have been an auror, Cissy."  
"At least she didn't kill him." Snape growled, rubbing his injured eye.

"I wasn't feeling violent. I already took care of that." Bella grinned at him.

Draco came to, blinking counfusedly at everyone surounding him.

"Mum? Ugh, what hit me?"  
"Bella."  
"Oh."

"You forgot the password." Bella replied boredly.

"There was a password?"

Embarrassed silence.

"Well, no." Narcissa finally admitted.

"You could have said who you were." Rita suggested.

"He could have been a morphmagus, or transfigured, or polymorphed, or charmed or something." Luna perked up.

The embarrased silence came back.

"But then again, who would know we were waiting for Draco?" Luna continued thoughtfully.

"So Aunt Bella cursed me for no reason?"  
"I had all the reason in the world!"

"My poor baby!"  
"Well it's done and over with now." Rita remarked. "How did it make you feel?"

Draco grinned. "I felt abandoned, and terrified, and lonely."

Narcissa let him continue his boasting to Rita as her green quickquill psychoanalyzed and tripled everything he said.

"Mrs. Malfoy, Mrs. Lestrange, Sybil, Sevvie," Sinistra's voice called from halfway down the steps.

"Do not call me that!" Snape hissed.

"It's me."  
"Are you sure you're not polyjuiced to be you?" Luna asked quizzically.

Sinistra's face appeared in the doorway. She frowned. "What?"  
"Really Lovegood. Who would polyjuice themselves to be Sinistra? There are plenty of better choices." Snape remarked dryly.

"I've gotten some rumours and facts, like you said to. Everyone I asked semed to have a different idea."  
Sinistra entered the room, setting the parchments down on the overturned table.

"Well, let's have a look!" Rita Skeeter had returned from her interview with Draco, lured by a much bigger sell.  
Snape flipped to the first one.

"Florean Fortescue…Abducted?"

A moment of silence reigned, before Bella admitted, "I have absolutely no idea why Lord Voldemort would abduct an ice-cream man."

This sent a storm of laughter around the shack.

"Anything more plausible?" Snape sighed.

"He could have run out of ice cream." Luna suggested as if it was the most natural answer in the world.

"Maybe he likes to torture people with it." Draco suggested.

"What?"  
"You know, I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream?"

"Uh-huh."  
"I'm telling the truth!"

"I'm reading the next one now." Snape announced.

"Is it possible for people to be horcruxes?"

Bellatrix frowned, then leaned over and poked Snape on the arm.

"A better question, how would we be able to tell if someone was a horcrux?"

"Can people really..?" Narcissa pondered.

"How many people did Harry tell about his mission?"  
"Apparently the entire wizarding world."

"Wonderful. So much for discreet."

"Well now we know wat he's doing."  
"But we don't know how to stop him."  
"I think Snape is a horcrux."  
The turn from logical was taken by Bellatrix, who poked Snape again, this time on his cheek.

"Stop that!" Snape batted her hand away.

"How do we know he is?" Luna asked, peering at him intently.

"How do we know he's not?" Draco smirked.

"Really, I should think I would know if I was a horcrux." Snape protested.

"We'll just have to test him."

"How?"  
"Really, I'm not a horcrux."

"Well, there isn't anything specific, so.."  
"Seriously. You're all paranoid. Whose Horcrux would I be?"

"We'll just have to throw random spells at him until we're sure he isn't one."

"It doesn't-what?"

The rest of the group advanced on him, grinning.

END CHAPTER 1


End file.
